I am a fairly new christian, 7yrs. though I've been a believer most of my life. I'm married, and have 2 sons, and a grandson.

I am a recovering drug addict through Jesus Christ. As of August 6th 2008 I have been clean for 7yrs. I have done drugs for 32 out of my 49 yrs. I am a suicidal depressant, and a survivor of abuse from my mother and stepfather I'm not a very social person out side of my home, and it's not easy for me to make friends face to face. I am a very cautious and emotional person. But I'm working on that, I have always ran away from my life with drugs, Now I am facing my life with Jesus on my side.

I work as a Certified Nurses Assistant in a Nursing Home, I take care of up to 16 Ladies in an Alzheimer's Unit. as well as up to 50 residents on the medical unit . I'm a 3rd shift worker, mostly because I don't believe I could handle all the cauos in the day and evening shifts. To Stressful! I Love my job! caring for the elderly and disabled, making them smile and letting them Know there are some caretakers who really do care!.

What kind of life does one experience when they are in a relationship of ups and downs... not just ups and downs but the same ones over and over. one week of showing love, the next week of being called names and being told to get the F- - - ! out... being told how great you are, then how rotten you are. Everyone can make a mistake, we are all human, but to do it repeatedly over and over. to me seems very cruel.

Does one learn from the mistake. and know it was wrong then knowingly do it again to hurt you or because they can't help it. Does repeated verbal abuse leave scars unseen but never gone. or do the scars show in the action of the one suffering from repetition.

How many times should repetition in forgiving be given before you can't repeat it again?. I know there is a plan for me in life and the lord knows what he has planned for me. I really don't believe this is to be it for me.

I have come so far in the last year, I'm I suppose to just let me go backwards knowing what i have learned. My eyes are opened up a lot more today than this time last year. A lot of thanks goes to the many friends i have made here on B/N. Thank you my friends! I feel so much better about myself and my self-confidence has come so far.

I can no longer live in the life of Repetition if it means losing myself and crawling back into the box made of brick walls. At this point being at work is where i'm the happiest. There's less stress, hurt, and pain.

Today these are some of my minds overloaded thoughts.I have had a very quite day today, and I don't want it to end.A new chapter in my lifeJoni

The color blue, does it state being in a blue mood, or a bright blue sky?

How much is one supposed to take before they really know it is affecting their mental, physical, and emotion state?.

This year I'll be treading down some very new territory, I'm I scared? Yes Some!. Am I excited? Yes some?. Wow in March I will be 50 years old!! Never thought I would make it that long with my destructive past. But I still have a couple months to go till I actually make it.So how does one Love someone for 30 years and the realize they would be better off without the one they have loved for so long? A Question? for my friends. What is your thought on the difference of loving one and Being in Love?.

Habit!!. Good or bad? What goes through ones mind when you have a habit that starts out to be a good habit, that turns out to be bad for you, and know that if you don't give up that habit it will end up destroying you, symptoms= mental/depression, emotional/up & down roller-coaster rides, physical/health. and even death.Question? Does a person know if they have a split personality, do they really not know when the bad half comes to surface.

Trust, Will there be happiness in one's life and future, if you once trusted one, and then that trust has been lost?. And though you have tried and tried to trust them again, because you love them, but you can't do it.

Vow of Marriage.... To death do you part!. What does that mean exactly? Natural Death, Death by Murder, Death by Mental overload of Stress and Depression. Death by Suicide.Can Love turn to hate after so long?

Well I have to go now, Not very privite right now,to many around me at the moment. I will return for more of what is over loading my mind.

One night in this house, seemed like the longest night ever. My parents were home and had a couple of friends over. Friends her and my step-dad had for along time, I remember that we all ate at home and every one ate what they wanted, we had a verity of things set out on the table. There was 7 of us, mom, step-dad, thier 2 friends, my 2 brothers and myself.

As the night got late we all went to bed, except for my parents 2 friends, they were still up in the living-room talking and drinking. This was a very confusing night I so will tell you what I remember and what I was told. I woke up that night 3 times that I can remember to use the bathroom, I would make it to the bathroom, but don't remember if I did what I needed to, I was kind of in and out of conuosness, and would faintly remember being carried back to my room, at least 3 times by one of my parents friends. whom were the ones that told us a little more about what happened.

My oldest brother had tried to get up as well to go to the bathroom that night but he didn't make it and fell in the hallway, and as my parents slept in thier room, mom was trying to take care of my half brother who seamed to be sick and kept vomiting. As the night went on the friends that were in the living-room started to get concerned. and the last time one of them carried me back to my room he fell and hit this metal piece that was sticking up from my floor by my closet and it cut him around his eye. And the way one of them described how it seemed to take forever to get to the telephone that he had to get down on his hands and knees to get there. they called for help and the ambulance's came and picked us all up and took us to the hospital, I don't remember being picked up but faintly remember some one looking over me and asking me my name, I don't think I was able to tell them, but remember looking to one side of me and seeing my brother and to the other side and seeing my parents and little brother. as we all slowly came to, we were laying in the hospital beds, and it was strange because as we were watching the TV we were on the news. I was actually watching the medical people bringing us out of our house and could see our eyes were all open but they were white.

I didn't understand the hospital's way of explaining how much we were affected by what happened to us, They explained it as if we hit 50% we were dead, my parents were at 47%, I was at 48%, and my oldest brother was at 49%, I think that was because he fell in front of the heater, and my younger brother was at 47% but at the same time he had pneumonia and had to stay in the hospital a little longer. I don't recall about the 2 friends of my parents except that one had to have stitches for that cut on his eye. And the hospital and athorities had a Hard time figuring it out, at first they thought we all had food poisoning, but we all ate something different that night, then they thought it was drug overdose, but found that it was corbon monixide from our gas heater. It was strange walking back into that house almost spooky like you could feel spirits lingering around

We were pronounced to be very lucky, because if they would have taken another 5 mins. before getting us to the hospital we would have all died. what was really strange was across the states in Florida the same thing happened to 7 other people, but they did not make it.

This is where I made my first friend, Her name is Tina, We did just about everything together, ditched school and went to the beach all the time. I would get to spend the night at her house a lot or at least that's what my parents thought, at the same time Tina's parents thought she was spending the night at my house. Tina and I would go to the beach and party, we be came beach bum hippie's. and would always find a place to stay through out the night, sometimes in a place called The In-between, it was a hang out for us homeless hippie's, or we would sleep in a garage some where. some times under some steps in an alley some where, but most of the time we were up all night partying at a house or on the beach. I did everything I could to stay away from home.

I could tell you how many times I have ran away from home. But every-time I was sent back home nothing would change, Because for some unknown reason my mother worshiped the ground my step-dad walked on. Life was pretty much going around in a circle, and it just became a routine for me to runaway from home.

Tina and I would go to concerts together and we were in to the drugs pretty heavy most of which was smoking pot, speed, and LSD. as we stayed gone for weeks at a time to the point of being so high that we would just end up anywhere, and the both of us were not virgins so if it took sex to have that place then so be it. I guess you could say the Tina and I were pretty much the drug using beach bum hippie sluts of Ocean Beach. There were many of times we hitchhiked to L.A. Hollywood, and would party there for days, It was Different from the beach, In Hollywood the people were more into the Cocaine, and Qualudes, what they called the love drugs, and all the guys would get us women high on this because it was easier to get girls such as Tina and I in the bed and do what ever they wanted sexually to us, and as long as we were kept high to the point of not even remembering it didn't matter to us we just new that it was all good and fun untill we started to come down, and that's not what we wanted. Because to me it was living in a world of non rejection, everybody wanted me in the world of drugs, and party's. If anyone didn't I didn't give a shit. But if I wasn't high it would always take it out on myself, by cutting myself or putting cigarette's out on my body, even to the point of hitting myself with my fists or a heavy object such as a cast iron skillet.

I was in and out of Juvenile Hall so many times they would always expect to see me not long after being released. This was my life, and I felt that every thing that I went through was want I deserved. I remember one time I was in Juvenile Hall and my mom came out to see me and she was informed by the authorities that I had been treated for V.D. and she just started calling me every name in the book, and as always she would make me feel like my life was shit, I remember chasing her down the hallway really wanting to hurt her, I believe killing her was going through my head at that time. It would never get through to her when I tried to tell her what it was like living at home with her and my step-dad. but even though all this happened a few weeks would go by and she would still get me out even knowing I wouldn't stay home for very long.

I continued living at home with all the same issues and more. Things starting get a little more intense as it became more strict in my living standards. There were many a nights I would be woke up in the middle of the night with a fist in my face as my step-dad came to the conclusion that he was not going to go as far as sexual intercourse with me, but kept up with his habits of touching me in places he shouldn't have and exposing his self. This was the first time thoughts of suicide entered my head. I was always told and ridiculed for most things I did and very seldom was I praised for anything I did that was good. I began feeling worthless and started in to more of the experimenting with drugs, Canibunal, Angle Dust,other types of LSD, Black Beauty's,and others.

I started running away from home more and more, Hell if I was late home from school 5 minutes I got in just as much trouble as if I was gone for a week or a month. I remember one time my brother had a friend spending the night and my parents had thier friends over all drinking and sitting around the bar in the living room. I was walking through the living-room and my mom called me over to the bar, she said to me if you want to be an adult then you should be able to drink like an adult and poured me a double shot of Black Velvet, that was her favorite. I took the shot and drank it as if i'd been doing it for years, as I sat there with all the adults I asked my mom what she would do if I had a hickey on my neck, she told me I would tell you to go get a dozen more, so I went to my brothers room were he and his friend was, "whom I liked " and got a dozen more hickey's from my brothers friend. I had to wear a scarf to school the next day.

Living right across the street from the school was very convenient. One day when my parents were working my brother and I and some friends ditch school and went to my house, we would all sit around the bar and drink, one day we decided to play this game of my parents called Pass Out. and 151 Rum was the drink we played the game with. As time went by we quit the game and started daring each-other on how much we could drink without stopping. and the only thing I remember is laying on the front lawn with the world spinning, and a breif moment of being in the bathroom where my brother was trying to get me in the tub, I'm guessing to sober me up before our parents came home. I was told by my brother that I went as far as going to a neighbors house and locking myself in thier bathroom and they could here me going through thier medicine cabinets, I can't say for sure if I had suicidal thoughts at that time because I don't even remember doing this.

The whole block would be able to hear all of the yelling and screaming and crying from our house. we lived next to an apartment that had about 6 residents and a house on the corner. Once the lady who lived in the house on the corner called the child's welfare on my parents and they came to our house. but my brother and I were to freaked out and scared to say anything so they left and that was the end of them. I remember one time my parents were sleeping and my brother took the keys to the car and went joy riding, which he did often as the parents were past out from there long working hours at the bar in which they drank at the same time. But one time they woke up and found out what he was doing, they waited for him to come home. When he finally came home they headed outside to confront my brother but he just threw the keys at my step-dad as he was being chased down the street. I didn't see my brother again for 3 days. I never understood why he would come back home. When I left home it was untill I got busted for being a runaway and uncontrollable. To Be Continued

I was in the 6th grade when we move into a 3 bedroom house in Ocean Beach California, my big brother was in 7th grade. In California school's grades were from Kinder-garden to 6th, then Jr. High was from 7th to 9th and High School was 10th to 12th. I would walk the short cut to and from school, we called it the swamp. I was the new kid and didn't know any one. Right off the bat I was walking home from school alone and there was these three girls from the Jr. High that started messing with me, pushing me around and taunting me, calling me names, then this one girl started pushing be backwards and another girl was on her hands and knees and I was pushed over her. I vowed to them that day that there time would come.

My brother made friends pretty fast the type of friends parents wouldn't approve of. It wasn't long before he was smoking pot and offering it to me and of course I didn't turn it down. We lived right across the street from the Jr. High and at first I thought it was great untill later when I finally made it to the 7th grade. I jump right into the same kind of crowd my brother did. I was in 7th grade when a friend handed me a pill they called it White Cross. I started taking them daily and found my self wanting to experiment other things.

My parents still work the same jobs and even decided to by a bar for the house, one that took up half the living-room, things just seem to get worse. It was as if my parents would invent things for us to get in trouble for and our punishments were more like being tortured. There was no standing in the corners it was on your tiptoes about 2 feet back from the wall and we were to lean at an angle with our finger tips on the wall for long periods of time. I was there dishwasher and if my mom found a dirty dish that I didn't wash good she would take every dish, pot & pan, silverware, glass, everything out of the cupboards and I would have to wash them all. To me it was almost like they enjoyed hitting on us with just about anything, wooden spoons, hangers, belts, fists. My mom would bake a cake and she would mark it, and if she came home from work and the mark was gone we would get whooped. I remember one time I was out with a friend and I came in the house and my brothers face looked swollen and hair was pulled out of his head, there was a screwdriver stuck in the wall with a phone number circled in ink, and silverware was thrown around the house and it was all because he had a problem of wetting the bed and wasn't allow to sleep on the couch, and he happened to have fell asleep on the couch that day.

This was the time my step-dad would start doing things to me. there were times my mom worked late and my step-dad came home drunk. My brother was either not at home or sleeping, and he was a sound sleeper. I would be in my room in bed doing my home work and he would enter my room naked and throw my covers back and try to jump in my bed saying I come to help you do your homework. I would scream so loud that he would leave. I started pushing my dresser in front of the door and some times I would climb out my bedroom window and wouldn't come back untill my mom came home. Some other things he would do to me is when I would walk by or happen to be near him he would pinch my breast. he would walk around the house with nothing but a towel wrapped around him and right in front of me he would drop the towel exposing himself. he was always making sexual advances towards me when my mom wasn't around. She never believed me when I told her.

I remember one time I called this place it was a hot line, where you would meet and talk to others and I met these guys and I would tell them about what was going on in my life. this one guy wanted to meet me and take me to the midnight all night movies "The Beatles". So I hitchhiked to San Diego to meet up with him. This guy handed me a pill he said it was LSD, and I took it. Me this guy and some other friends of his were walking to the theater tripping on LSD, and I heard this sound it sounded like my parents car, so I asked them to look behind us and tell me if it was a green GTO and they said yes. My mom jump out of the car and ran towards me yelling "Bunny you get your ass in this car you are in a world of shit. I ran and she started running after me yelling at other people STOP HER! but I dodge them and kept running. I was alone, scared and tripping on a drug I have never done before. I hid but in my head I seen my parents around every corner. I ended up running to the police station and telling them about my parents, I was taken to a place called Hillcreast for kids. I was there for a few days and they sent me home, said I didn't have a choice that I had to go back with my parents.

The house we moved into was kind of a house that had an up stairs residents and a down stairs resident, we lived up stairs there are several memories here. I was at the age where my brother and I could walk to school, and the people who moved in down stairs became our friends there was Bill, Jim and Doreen. I had a big crush on Bill, of course he was a few years older than me, but I didn't care. I was in the 4th and 5th grade when we live here. I had long dark hair and eyes, I don't think I was bad looking. I'll never forget walking to school one day I was by myself and I would have to go past a Holiday Inn Hotel. I couldn't believe it. there was this man who was standing in one of the windows naked and he was pointing at me. I just freaked out and ran the rest of the way to school. never happened again.

My mother and stepdad both drank a lot in these days. working double shifts. My stepdad was a bartender and my mom was a Go-Go Dancer and tended bar as well. after school we would have to go to this babysitters house, Mrs. Coburn she was heavy set and very sloppy her house smelt funny too. I really didn't like going there she would expose her self by wearing those mo mo dresses without any underwear on and sit with her legs apart. I guess it was better than being at home. my mom had a son with my stepdad. I now had a half brother. I was the one that would take care of him at home because at night my parents were past out from drinking and wouldn't wake up to feed or change him most of the time.

We lived across the street from a Catholic church and My mom started sending my brother and me there. so that's where I started church, though it didn't last long, as my parents seem to get into thier drinking more I started seeing them fight and it was horrible my stepdad would be kicking my mom in her Private areas with his boots on and throwing things, I would grab my little brother and run to the bedroom and cry. My older brother had problems with wetting the bed and I remember my mom made two signs and hooked them together, put them over his head and made him walk to the store with them on, the signs said I'm a bed wetter and I wet my bed. I felt so bad for him, and my mom made me walk behind him to make sure he did walk to the store all the way. of course when we went around the corner we took them off then went to the store.

There were times we would have family days, not many but we had fun going to the park and playing croquet and have picnic's. and my Birthdays were fun because I would get a party as well as Easter at the same time. and one Christmas I remember was great. But it always seem to me that my parents would buy things to try to show thier love. I remember my mom put me on a plane to go visit my grandmother and uncle, my uncle freaked me out by taking his eye out and putting it in his mouth and back into his eye socket I'll never forget that. My Grandma took me to get my ears periced and hair cut. when I went back home my mom was mad and quit talking to my Grandma. She did not like the pixie hair cut and wanted my long hair back. and she told me I had enough holes in my head that I didn't need any more by getting my ears periced. when I was visiting my grandma I also went to see my step-grandparents, they were the ones who taught me how to ride a bike, I didn't even know how to ride a bike and I was in 4th grade.

When that Christmas came around I was asking for a bike but kept getting the answer no. My mom was good at wrapping presents and tricky. We always got to open one present early and she once told me that some times the smaller the package the better the present and so I pick a small present and it ended up being a pack of juicy fruit gum. I wasn't to happy that I picked that present. My older brother had a big huge box and it was a box wrapped in a box, wrapped in a box, and a bunch of newspapers before he found his skate board. this was the Christmas I asked for that bike. but there wasn't one under the tree. when morning came we would wake up mom and stepdad. Santa's been here let's open presents. but my mom said no you have to do your chore first. this blew my Christmas spirit so I said what chore? you have to go feed those cats. we had a bunch of cats that live out on the back porch. so I stomped through the house and opened the back door. There was the most beautiful red bike I had ever seen. That was a great Christmas.

This was also where my parents bought thier first new car it was a GTO things were up and down living here. and I'm sure there's a lot more that's happened here but these are the things that I will always remember. Oh yea I remember at school one day I asked one of the boys why they were always chasing after Elizabeth, she was a girl at school that had some really full lips, and ask what was wrong with me.? and this boy told me I had the legs like an ape (hairy). When I went home I told my mom I wasn't going to wear dresses any more and why. That's when I asked her to get me something so I could start shaving my legs with, or maybe I should try my stepdad's razor, but mom bought me some thing so I started shaving.

The move to a real house out of the city of San Diego to Ocean Beach. To be Continued.

I remember one time when I was at school I was in kinder-garden and it was play time. We would all race out to the swings and I would swing real high, then slow down to be able to jump off the swing and land on my feet, well that was the idea anyway and all the other kids were doing it so I decided I wanted to try. I don't know what happen but I ended up on my face and knocked two of my teeth out. the teachers and kids all look for them but could not find them so everyone assume that I had swallowed them.

There was a time I remember that happened at home. I was at the age where times of curiosity, you know boy meets girl kind. I don't remember the boys name but he lived in the same apartment building as me and we were playing out back and under the stairs and this boy said to me if you show me yours, I'll show you mine. well we showed. It was a quick and innocent thing at that age.

My mother was a lady who believed in eating everything in your plate, mybe because of all the potato's we had to eat in the past. Even if I couldn't stand it. you know how some things make you gag when you tried to swallow it. with me it was peas and asparagus, Brussels sprouts things like that. We didn't have a dog. so instead I would fill my mouth as full as I could and have to go to the bathroom where I would then spit it in the toilet. My mother was a Go-Go Dancer, and we still did not have much. we didn't have a T.V. but I remember she would sit with me and my brother and we would look at the blank wall that my mom would point at and she would say to us look it's Bugs Bunny or some other cartoon characters and tell us the story of what was happening untill we believed we were really watching a T.V. My mom worked hard to take care of my brother and I and she was such a good mom she showed us a lot of love and attention. During this time we lived in these apartments she had married a man and it only lasted for about 1 week. I don't recall him but later in my story I do but that's another story.

Moving into our first house with my mom and her third husband, our new step-dad. Life for me and my brother took a turn for the worse. To be continued.

I don't have to many memories of Florida, and the ones I do have are more about my brother and mom. I don't recall how old I was when we moved to Florida, but I was about 4yrs. old when I do remember that my brother had took a cigarette from my mom and we ran out the back door and under the porch. don't recall if I tried to smoke any of that cigarette, just that my brother burned his thumb trying to light the lighter. There was another time when my brother and I were outside playing and he sat on this small hill, he wasn't there for long before he jump up and was running around hitting himself and screaming at the top of his lungs. I seen my mother run out of the house grab my brother and took him back in the house, as I was running behind them not knowing what was wrong , I was scared and crying. mom was filling up the bathtub and slapping at my brother while taking his clothes off. Things started to calm down a little after my brother was in the bathtub, then my mom closed the door and I couldn't see what was going onany more, but listening to the sounds my brother was making I knew he was hurting. I waited for them to come out, it seemed like forever. When they finally came out I noticed the red spots all over him "everywhere". What's wrong with Nicky mom? (Nicky is my brothers nick name). Well Bunny! (Bunny is my nick name). My mom said your brother sat down on a hill of fire ants. There was another occasion when my brother and I were outside playing and my brother was catching bugs just so he could chase and scare me with them. One time he caught a big grasshopper and chased me with it, when he finally stopped he turned the grasshopper around so he could get a closer look at it's face aand that's when the grasshopper spit right his face, I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

I know that my mom had a hard time trying to care for us, we didn't have much. and I remember that we all ate a lot of potato's. We had them for breakfast (potato pattys, hash browns) ect. and we had them for lunch (fries, potato skins) ect. and we had them for dinner (mashed, baked) etc.. It wasn't the only thing we had to eat but they took up most of the space on our plates. I thought my mom was great at cooking, because she had the talent for always creating different ways to make those potato's taste good every time.

The Move to California, I don't remember the move to San Diego, California, I just remember that I started school as soon as we were settled. I went Washington Elementary School. I was in Kindergarten. We lived in a apartment.